Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. After municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, a movement developed to secure state legislation. New York was the first state to introduce a bill, but Oregon was the first to pass a law recognizing Labor Day, which happened on Feb. 21, 1887. That year, four more states—Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York—passed laws creating a Labor Day holiday. By 1894, more than two dozen more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September a legal holiday. The first federal Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.
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For 30 years (from 1924–1954), six days a week, Denys Wortman produced cartoons under the title “Metropolitan Movies” for newspapers, depicting the lives of an assortment of haves and have-not characters. In addition, his cartoon vignettes of “Mopey Dick and the Duke” presented two lovable vagrants commenting on life in America from the Depression to the early ’50s.
A website devoted to Wortman shares his wit, empathy and insight for the working man and woman. Per a note that appears there, “In viewing his cartoons, one will find a striking resemblance to the plight of today’s realities, reminding us all of the timeless humor of social and cultural mores.”
These images are from a 1930s-era book of selected vignettes from “Metropolitan Movies.”
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